Verwandte Artikel zu Four Steps to the Altar (Second Chances, Band 4)

Four Steps to the Altar (Second Chances, Band 4) - Softcover

Stone, Jean

 
9780553588538: Four Steps to the Altar (Second Chances, Band 4)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0553588532 ISBN 13: 9780553588538
Verlag: Bantam, 2006

Inhaltsangabe

They say true love is priceless, but is it worth fifty million dollars? With Second Chances, their wedding planning business, starting to take off, four best friends must decide whether they’ll take some second chances of their own. Free-spirited Lily finds herself forced to choose between her sure-thing inheritance and a chance at true love; the no-longer-predictable Elaine surprises everyone–including herself–when romance comes calling from her past; Sarah, the uncompromisingly unconventional artist, finds herself contemplating the most unexpected choice of all; and the always-clear-eyed Jo suddenly finds herself second-guessing her own second chance at happily-ever-after. The choice for each of them is “I do” or “I don’t,” and the decision will change their lives.

Breakups, makeups, and romance at every turn–life always offers up its best surprises to those who leave themselves open to the possibility of second chances.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

JEAN STONE ran her own award-winning advertising agency for fifteen years before becoming a full-time writer.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1


Marry me, Lily."

It was early in May, a year when spring had come deliciously early to the Berkshire hills of Massachusetts, teasing the landscape with purple crocus and yellow daffodils, plumping tree branches with expectant buds, warming the earth with the promise of a new season, another chance at another beginning.

It was early in May, and it was the end of the day, the end of another wedding that Lily and her second-wedding-planning partners had created, this one a Sunday evening event between a nurse and a carpenter who lived in Albany and had met at a school play when their kids were in first grade. It was a second wedding for the nurse, a third for the carpenter.

If Lily Beckwith married Frank Forbes, it would be his second, her fourth, which wouldn't matter, because hardly anyone got married only once anymore.

Still, she would have to say no.

She zipped the quilted case that held the silver hors d'oeuvre trays they'd used for the crab cakes and spinach quiches. She moved it to the stack of things that Frank had offered to load into his truck and return from the reception at the country club to the rental store. He was generous like that. Always around to help the small bunch of enthusiastic women who took on too much work because it was such fun.

"Frank," Lily said softly, "I don't know what to say." She'd known him a year, well, less than that, actually, since she'd come back to West Hope, where she and her old college roommates had opened Second Chances, proclaiming themselves the be-all, end-all, know-it-all experts for second-time brides. They'd leased a shop in Frank's building on Main Street, and Lily had moved into the apartment upstairs. Because Frank was a man, and because he was single, it was inevitable that Lily quickly had snared him. It was also inevitable, she supposed, that he now felt secure in popping the question. She should have expected it, should have been prepared. Instead, she lowered her eyes. "Will you let me think about it?"

He laughed good-naturedly. "We can do a prenup. I'll keep my meager antiques business, you keep your late husband's vast fortune."

He was trying to lighten the mood, Lily thought. He had no idea things would not be that easy. She shook her head. "But I've already been married a few times."

"I don't care if you've had a few hundred husbands. I'd like to be the few hundred and first."

He was a dear man, Frank Forbes. He was gentle, kind, steady, and strong. He was good-enough-looking, not too short or too tall, not dashingly handsome, but he had sturdy, broad shoulders and sincere brown eyes and a sweet, receding hairline. He'd make a great husband, partner, mate. And he loved her! Lily had felt sure of that from the start.

"You do love me, Lily," he said, taking her hand, his callused, workingman fingers threading around her soft, delicate ones, smothering her large pear-shaped pink diamond, the ring she'd bought one day on a whim.

It was the pink diamond–not the previous marriages–that was the real problem.

If Lily married Frank–or anyone–she would lose her inheritance from poor, dead Reginald Beckwith, her most recent husband. As much as Lily cared about Frank, would he–would any man–really be worth fifty million? Not that she'd ever see the cash, certainly not the way Reginald's beastly sister, Antonia, rationed Lily's allowance as if it were chocolate and Lily, a diabetic.

Fluffing her wispy blond curls, Lily resumed her role as a coquette. "Don't be a goose, darling. I simply need a bit of time. You understand, don't you?" She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his forehead. "Now, I must go check on the girls." Then she flitted away, butterfly that she was, too embarrassed to admit to Frank that, short of going to Antonia and distastefully groveling, Lily simply couldn't marry him. It just wouldn't work, economically speaking.

She sucked in her cheeks and tried to tell herself that was okay.


2


If the old bastard asks about John Benson, I'll say we haven't spoken for a while, that I've been busy with friends, launching their new business." Andrew stood at the mirror that hung over the bureau in the bedroom of his small cottage. He straightened his open shirt collar and adjusted the shoulders of his khaki twill blazer. He hoped it was okay not to wear a tie.

"The Dean of Academics at Winston College–the 'old bastard,' as you call him–might not even know John," Jo replied.

He turned to look at her, the vision of loveliness camped out in his bed, where she regularly was whenever Cassie slept over at her friend Marilla's. (Though Andrew had tried to tell Jo that Cassie was very hip for twelve years old and would be cool about them sleeping together, Jo had insisted, for propriety's sake, on not giving his daughter "too loose" a message about love and sex.) So sometimes Jo and Andrew stayed here, sometimes at Jo's house, where they would all live once he and Jo finally were married, which was just weeks away, though it seemed like decades. He leaned down and kissed her full, sexy mouth and wondered not for the first time how he had gotten so lucky. "Thanks for the encouragement, but even the new pope knows John Benson."

When Jo laughed, her green eyes crinkled and her whole high-cheekboned face glowed. She tucked her taupe-colored, slept-on hair behind her ears, then kissed Andrew's cheek. "Winston College was lucky to have you as a professor once. They will be lucky again."

Andrew groaned, sat on the side of the bed, and tugged on his right sneaker, then his left. "Are the sneakers too . . ."

"Too what? Too you? No. They're perfect."

He felt her gaze on him as he began tying the shoelaces.

"You really are nervous, aren't you?" she asked.

He double-knotted each lace, the way he'd taught Cassie to do for good luck. "I want to be able to support my new wife in the style to which she has become accustomed."

She said that wouldn't take much, then they both laughed and he took her hand.

"Yes," he said. "I'm nervous. I need my old job back. Call it a man-thing about having a decent paycheck. But I'm afraid John has cut the strings that got me there the first time." The first time had been nearly six years ago, when he'd moved from New York City to West Hope, when he'd gone from being an international television journalist to a small-town college professor so he could raise his young daughter in the peace of the country. John–media mogul, Winston College alum, and hefty benefactor–had been a mentor to Andrew back then, had wanted to help him heal the wounds of a ripping divorce. Time, however, had changed a few things, and John was no longer an Andrew Kennedy fan, and vice versa.

Jo covered his hand with her other one. "You will be fine. You don't need John Benson. And if the college doesn't want you, you can still be a wedding planner. Maybe I can talk to the others about giving you a raise."

He reached for a pillow–his pillow that was next to her–and bounced it off the side of her head. She grabbed it and pretended to throw it back at him, just as he shouted "Uncle!" and leapt from the bed. He returned to the mirror, squared his shoulders again, and combed his tawny, never-in-place hair with his fingers.

"You'll come to the shop when you're done?" Jo asked.

"No."

Jo raised her lovely, lean, naked body up on one elbow. His heart did the little dance that it did whenever she revealed that she had her clothes off, the same little dance that made him feel...

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Verlag
Bantam
Erscheinungsdatum
2006
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0553588532
ISBN 13 
9780553588538
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
304
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
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Pärnu mnt 139b-14
Tallinn
11317
Estland